


hybrid-vigor and the decline of predation: a study in social behavior

by SuddenlyTentacles



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Bird/Human Hybrids, Cat/Human Hybrids, M/M, Pre-Slash, preening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 13:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuddenlyTentacles/pseuds/SuddenlyTentacles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birdboy Gavin meets Catboy Michael and has the obvious bird reaction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hybrid-vigor and the decline of predation: a study in social behavior

**Author's Note:**

  * For [callmearcturus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmearcturus/gifts).



> Inspired by padalickingood's fanart (http://padalickingood.tumblr.com/post/66535987636) and donotchoosesidesyet's ficlet (http://donotchoosesidesyet.tumblr.com/post/66545773231) in equal measure. Unbeta'd, sort of.

Gavin walked-- alright, _bounced_ \-- through the doors of the new Rooster Teeth office, wings quivering with the urge to flap happily. Suffice to say he'd been on cloud nine since'd he'd stepped off the bloody stupid plane and on to Austin soil, and from there into Austin airspace on his own two wings. There was nothing so exquisite as Texas sunshine on out-stretched feathers, soaking in between every pinion and filling him up where cold, drizzling London had drained him. He'd spent most of yesterday flitting around the Ramsey's backyard, showboating and teasing them, picking Millie up and dropping her a few short feet onto her trampoline, and then Griffon, and very nearly Geoff (he'd been a bit tuckered out and more than a little buzzed by the time he'd grabbed Geoff by the wrist and tugged, flapping furiously, and Geoff had been a bit too drunk to avoid the metal edge of the trampoline.) and then this morning, he'd foregone Geoff's cramped truck cab and heinous Austin traffic and flown himself to the office.

There was a faint ache and burn in his shoulders after weeks grounded in England, but it was beyond worth it for another quick taste of the sun and wind before he settled into the office in front of his computer for the day. He breezed through the building quickly, reacquainting himself with every familiar face he could find in a whirlwind of feathers and obnoxiously loud whistling, until Geoff arrived, still only half-caffeinated, and pointed him at the Achievement Hunter office with a grunt and a half-arsed wave. Still bouncing, he crossed the building and burst through the office door, humming happily--

And came to a dead stop, still as stone. His eyes flicked up and down the strange new lad seated at a desk, and Gavin took in glasses, a scowl, two large cat ears flattened against a head of curls, and a bushy tail nearly as long as he was tall. A beat passed in taut silence, and the stranger’s tail _lashed_.

Gavin shrieked like a strangled parrot and flung himself back out of the doorway with a single flap, slamming it shut behind him and scrambling away, hop-flapping through the foyer until he reached the stairs and jumped most of the way to the second floor. He caught himself on the rail and scrabbled over it, kicking and flapping frantically until he flipped over it completely and landed in a heap of feathers that were now mostly going the wrong way. People were jumping up from desks and peering out of offices with the same baffled, mildly concerned expressions-- they didn’t really expect proper screams until after he’d had a few bevs. Gavin lurched to his feet, turned and nearly clocked Burnie in the head with an outstretched wing.

“Dude, _what_? What the hell is going on, Gav, what’s wrong?” Burnie grabbed him by the shoulders and Gavin struggled free immediately, ducking behind him to put Burnie between the top of the stairs and himself and then leaping onto the poor bastard’s back, wrapping his arms and legs around him and shaking like a leaf.

“You hired a bloody _feline_?! What the bloody bollocksing hell is wrong with you?!” He squawked, ignoring Burnie’s attempts to pry his arms open. Then again, Gavin realized, his arms were a bit higher and possibly tighter than he’d intended, but he was prevented from investigating Burnie’s curious choking noises by two reddish-brown cat ears poking over the edge of the top of the stairs, shortly followed by narrowed yellow eyes behind a pair glasses and the tip of the stranger’s massively fluffy tail, twitching violently.

“You-- you stay the _fuck_ away from me, you fuzzy bastard!” Gavin shrieked, and released Burnie’s neck in favor of launching himself off his back and onto the desks clustered in the center of the loft with a frantic flutter of wings, narrowly avoiding kicking monitors and PC towers in his panic.

“Oh, _fuck you_ , asshole! I’m not a fucking animal!” The stranger snarled, poking his head all the way above the edge of the top step but failing to get off all fours; his tail bristled to twice its size as he did and lashed furiously behind him like a battle standard.  

At the far end of the desk-island, Gavin half-turned, blew a loud, rude raspberry over his shoulder, tripped over a keyboard, and hit the floor with a _thud_ and a squawk. The stranger positively yowled with laughter as Gavin thrashed his way free of his own wings, swearing violently, until they were both cut off by the skull-splitting wail of an airhorn and were suddenly too busy clutching their ears and writhing to do much of anything else.

“What. The _fuck_.” Every pair of eyes in the loft landed on a deeply, terrifyingly unamused Gus. Very slowly and discreetly, Gavin curled up and drew a wing over himself, and across the loft, the stranger was doing much the same by pinning his ears against his skull and pressing his belly as flat to the staircase as he could, tail tucked tightly against his legs.

As one, everyone in the loft turned and looked at Gavin. Gus followed their gaze, and narrowed his eyes at Gavin. Traitors, the lot of them. Still, Gavin gathered up all the righteous indignation he could find after it had scattered in the wake of panic, and glared at Gus over his bristling feathers.

“You hired a _feline_. To work in the same bloody office as me! A feline!”

“Fucking really, Gavin?” Burnie wheezed, nearly drowned out by the interloper’s snarl of, “Hey, you got a fucking problem with felines, birdboy?” Gavin rolled to his knees and stuck his head around the corner of the desk island so he could see the stranger, ignoring Burnie completely.

“Yeah, I got a problem with bloody lunatics leaping on my bloody back and half ripping my bloody feathers out!”

“I haven’t fucking _touched_ you, motherfucker! I’m not a fucking animal!”

“Oh! I’ve never heard that one before, you dumb idiot!”

“Fucking blow me, you--”

“ _SHUT THE FUCK UP!_ ” Together, their mouths snapped shut and they cringed away from a fuming Gus. “Gavin, calm the _fuck_ down. Nobody, and I mean fucking nobody, is going to hurt you in this goddamn office.” A beat. “Not off camera, anyway.”

Gavin opened his mouth to protest, waving incredulously at the stranger still on all fours on the stairs, and shut it immediately again at Gus’ seething glare. Gus turned to the stranger.

“Michael. What did you do?” Michael bristled visibly, but not nearly as much as he had at Gavin.

“ _Nothing_. I was sitting at my fucking desk when he walked in and lost his shit.” Gus turned back to Gavin, who puffed up indignantly.

“His tail did the thing!” Across the loft, Burnie sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It did the thing they do when they’re gonna bloody jump!”

“It’s a fucking tail!” Michael hissed. “It moves! That’s what it does!”

“It did the _thing_!” Gavin squawked back, flailing.

“ENOUGH!” Heads snapped towards a red-faced Burnie and he fixed Michael and Gavin both with a glare each.

“Gavin. I vetted this guy myself, alright? I found him, I interviewed him, I went over his entire goddamn background check myself, got it?” Gavin slowly began to cringe into a ball where he sat on the floor, discreetly drawing his wings around himself as his cheeks started to burn with color. “I wouldn’t fucking bring someone in if I thought they couldn’t handle working with you. Michael grew up with avian people, and every other species of people out there, and he knows we won’t tolerate any predatory bullshit here. Now, are we good? Or does somebody need to take a fucking sabbatical to get their shit together first? Gus, put your hand down.”

Gavin snuck a peek at Michael over the edge of his wing as he mumbled an indistinct ‘no’ into his feathers; Michael’s ears were flat to his skull again, but not as tightly, as angrily, as before, and his tail was twitching jerkily rather than lashing.

“Could’ve done with a warning,is all.” He muttered, and missed the flick of Michael’s ear at his words as he glanced up at Gus, gauging his odds of being strangled. Burnie nodded to himself.

“Right, reminds me; where’s Geoff? I’m gonna punch him in the fucking head.”

 

* * *

 

After three hours of working in complete and utter silence and trying not to move a single muscle more than was necessary to operate mouse and keyboard, Gavin took his lunch at 11 am on the dot and fled to the roof of the office. Having given Geoff’s position away to Burnie in exchange for his own life (he assumed), he’d gone straight to work with his head down and not a single word to anybody, and his feathers had lain as they’d fallen ever since, a mad itch that had chased any chance of proper focus off. Flapping up to the roof had nearly been painful, and far more awkward than it had any right to be; he’d touched down on the edge and scrambled up to the peak of it, where’d taken a seat and bolted a dry salad in moments, then turned to his wings to assess the damage and make soft whiny noises to himself that drove nearly everyone else mad.

None of the feathers he could see or reach by himself were broken, but plenty were frazzled and knocked askew, pointing this way or that, or refusing to lie properly flat. Sorely missing Griffon’s small, nimble, and utterly magical fingers, he ran his hands through his hair and set about smoothing feathers and tweaking them back into place. It wasn’t half as nice as sprawling across somebody else’s lap and melting into a puddle of pure pleasure while they did all the work, but it was pleasant and repetitive, and consequently meditative.

Before long, he was entirely absorbed in stroking long flight feathers back into shape, but it was difficult to miss the small pebble that sailed between his nose and the wing it was nearly pressed to, even for him. He reeled back with an indignant squawk and toppled over, landing on his half-preened wings hard enough to knock the wind out of him and sliding a foot or two down the roof before flailing and catching himself, one hand gripping the peak he’d fallen from for dear life.

“ _Shit,_ sorry!”

Gavin flapped and kicked and managed to roll to one side, wings unfurling fast and hard with a loud crack as he landed on his hands and knees. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the memory of Burnie laughing his ass off the last time he’d forgotten himself in a fit of fury and acted more bird than human, hissing and mantling his wings like it was even remotely threatening to humans-- but Michael wasn’t human, was he?

Footsteps rang on the other side of the metal roof and Gavin scrambled to his feet and into a crouch as Michael , hissing venomously-- and Michael flinched backwards. That was new for Gavin, but he kept his wings half-spread and rigid, bristling and ready to club the bastard into submission.

“Shit, fuck-- Wait!” Michael crouched where he stood until he was almost kneeling in the gravel, but his tail was was curled tightly around his feet and ankles, it’s tip twitching jerkily. His ears weren’t pinned to his skull either, but were flattened to either side of it instead. One flicked forward briefly when Gavin shut his mouth with an audible snap and accidentally turned his head so that Michael was only visible to one eye; it didn’t actually help him see better with a pair of forward-facing human eyes, but he wasn’t about to undo it while Michael was watching him closely.

“I’m sorry.” Michael said stubbornly. Gavin’s wings twitched at the words, drawing in tighter. “You didn’t hear me, and I didn’t wanna fuckin’ yell at you, after--” He waved vaguely. Gavin didn’t move. “Sorry.”

Gavin held his ground and let silence stretch itself across the roof for a long moment, until it was taut as a drum.

“What do you want?” He straightened up out of his crouch a bit, keeping his knees bent and his weight balanced on the balls of his feet. Michael shrugged uncomfortably and sat back on his heels, resting his elbows on his knees.

“Just-- wanted to talk.” His ears were slowly inching forward into an upright position. “Thought I’d let you know that I get it. Sort of.” Gavin narrowed his eyes.

“Get what?”

Michael waved expansively at the roof between them and shrugged again. “I get why you lost your shit,” He said, and ignored Gavin entirely when he opened his mouth to protest. “I don’t fuckin’ blame you. I can’t fucking blame you, it’s not like I’ve never bitten someone’s head off for getting too close to my goddamn tail or looking at me funny.”

“Of course you can’t fucking blame me, it’s not my bloody fault! I had no idea you were gonna be there!”

“Right!” Michael shouted, looking bizarrely triumphant with his ears pricked forward and his tail waving jauntily behind him. “Who the fuck expected you to walk through that door and be cool with it?”

Gavin opened his mouth, and then shut it again. “What?”

“I’m not a fucking animal, but you don’t know that.” He elaborated, downright cheerful. Gavin gaped at him.

“You keep bloody saying that! You’ve got a tail for godsake, you’re at least part animal!”

Michael’s good cheer evaporated. “So fucking what?! I don’t have to act like one!” He shouted, jumping to his feet. Gavin leapt back with a single flap, landing on the very edge of the roof and dropping back into a crouch. Above him, Michael flinched, and then slapped a hand to his forehead and dragged it down his face; it was the only thing that kept Gavin from leaping off the roof altogether when he began to stomp down the roof towards him. On the one hand, he didn’t have any bloody reason to believe Michael wouldn’t ‘forget’ himself one day, no matter what he said, but on the other hand, he said it with more conviction than any other predator Gavin had met, except maybe Dan. Michael stopped halfway down the slope of the roof, shoved a hand through the hair between his ears, and huffed an irritated sigh.

“Look. I’m not gonna say I don’t want to-- to fucking _pounce_ , or whatever, but I want to do a lot of shit, okay? I used to be an electrician, and some days I wanted to stay the fuck home and play video games, but I didn’t because I didn’t wanna lose my damn job. Sometimes, I wanna punch people in the fuckin’ face, and I don’t, because I don’t want to go jail. And I don’t fucking _assault_ other species just ‘cause I feel like it, for whatever bullshit reason my brain comes up with, because it’s fucking wrong and I don’t have to, because I’m _not a fucking animal._ ”

Gavin made the brief mistake of meeting Michael’s gaze directly; it was crushingly intent, his eyes fiercely hazel and his pupils mere slits under the high sun, and the tilt of his jaw was nothing if not proud. Gavin dropped his eyes immediately, swearing silently at the blue tin roof under his feet as his brain scrambled for something to say, anything. Michael sighed again, long and exhausted, and Gavin’s wings twitched before he could steel them.

“I just thought we got off on the wrong fucking foot and maybe I could fix it, but whatever.” He muttered. Slowly, Gavin’s wings wilted and quietly folded themselves against his back, but Michael was staring up at the sun now, hands shoves deep into the pocket of his hoodie. “We don’t have to be best fucking buddies or anything, I just didn’t want working here to be like-- that. For either of us.” Michael paused, mouth open to say something, and then he waved it away and turned to leave.

“Last time it happened, I was grounded for a month and Geoff was arrested for beating the snot out of the bastard.” Michael startled and whirled around.

“Holy _fuck_ , really?” Gavin ran a hand through his hair and nodded.

“I mean, the charges were dropped, but he was cuffed and they took him off in a bloody cruiser and everything. They tried to put me in an ambulance, but I got away and had to call a cab to get home and tell Griffon, she can never hear her bloody cell when she’s working.” He babbled, and carefully climbed the slope of the roof at angle, so that he arrived beside Michael, a few feet away. Michael’s stare was almost horrified, his mouth opening and closing as Gavin talked-- finally, he burst out with, “Why didn’t you go to the goddamn hospital?!” Gavin shrugged.

“They can’t grow me new feathers, and it’s never serious, just sore and bloody for a few days. Itches like hell when they come back in. And the upside of hollow bones is they take like, three weeks tops to heal properly.”

Michael rubbed his face tiredly. “A fucking month, _christ_.”

“It’s not the longest I’ve ever been grounded, but that was mostly in Britain.” He said, scuffing a shoe against the roof. “Combination of weather and head colds and other stuff. Spent a lot of time on the ground there, and then I came to Austin.” He shrugged awkwardly again. “I mean, it could always be bloody worse, can’t it?”

“So?!” Michael snapped. “Just ‘cause it isn’t the fucking _worst_ doesn’t mean it isn’t absolute shit to begin with! It’s fucking bullshit!” He was actually waving his arms about now, red faced, and Gavin laughed before he could think better of it.

“It is, isn’t it?” He giggled, helpless and grinning like a maniac. Michael’s arms dropped abruptly and he smirked at Gavin, self-deprecating and a little rueful. He beamed at Michael a moment longer, then turned and climbed the rest of the way to the peak of the roof. He took a seat and flicked one wing out in front of himself, eyeing it critically and searching for the spot he’d left off on, and said, “So, let me guess. The tail?”

Below him, Michael growled absently and his tail lashed once, then settled back into idle twitching. “Every goddamn time.” He made his way up to the peak and settled beside Gavin and his outstretched wing. “‘Oh, he’s just a little boy, he doesn’t know any better!’” He sang in obnoxious falsetto. “Oh, sorry, it just looks so soft!” Then in a deeper, entertainingly accurate impression of a frat boy. “Oh, whoops! I guess it is real! Sorry bro! Hurr hurr hurr!” His tail was lashing properly now, and his ears had practically disappeared into his mop of hair. Gavin hummed sympathetically, smoothing out the last feather he could reach without snapping his spine in half.

“Sounds about right.” He said, mock cheerful, and twisted until he could at least peer over his shoulder and glimpse the tips of the feathers that had been knocked askew.

“Can you not reach those?” He glanced up at Michael and found him leaned back, staring intently at the same patch of feathers he was.

“Nah. Maybe if I want to make them worse.” He said, folding his wing away and stubbornly ignoring the mad, nagging itch that began.

“I can-- “ Michael said, tone utterly casual as he lifted a hand towards Gavin’s hair and froze almost immediately . “I mean, I’ve-- done it before, I know-- “ And stopped again, color creeping up into his cheeks.

Gavin went very, very still; he could see the sharp tips of Michael’s claws peeking out from under his fingernails, but the itch had gone from nagging to painful in an instant in the face of potential relief, and he ducked his head even while alarms were ringing in his brain, screaming, _‘Weird, weird, too weird!’_

Michael’s fingers carded quickly through his hair at his temple, fast but not rushed; efficient. Gavin had a split second to miss Griffon sharply and wish Geoff wasn’t being an absolute nob today before Michael’s fingers found the offending feather and tweaked it into place. It wasn’t unlike popping a joint back into place on a much smaller scale, and he nearly wheezed with relief, releasing a breath he’d been holding ever since Michael had raised his hand. Michael kept going, smoothing and reshaping the feather, and then another, and another, and Gavin, heavy-lidded and half dozing, mumbled. “Bollocks, you _have_ done this before.”

Michael’s chuckle was soft and fond, and gave Gavin absolutely no warning before the bastard clapped him on the back between his wings, hard. He squawked and flapped once before realizing he wasn’t falling and Michael hadn’t attempted to murder him, and Michael burst into peals of laughter.

“All better?” He grinned. Gavin glared balefully at him, for all of three seconds; then Michael’s grin stretched a little bit wider, and Gavin was suddenly on the losing side of a battle with the corners of his own mouth as they twitched into a smirk for Michael.

“S’pose it’ll do for now.” He stood and stretched his arms above his head and his wings as wide as they would go, soaking in a few last drops of sunlight. “Lunch is about done, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Michael said, standing and dusting the seat of his pants. “I’ve gotta get started on fucking Rage Quit and then try and put a dent in Monday’s let’s play.” Gavin frowned and cocked his head at Michael as he began to pick his way down the roof, and then followed him.

“Bollocks to that, you’ll be here ‘till midnight. I’ll take Rage Quit and you can focus on the bloody let’s play, then.”

Michael spun around so quickly he nearly fell off the roof altogether and Gavin squawked in alarm, reaching for him before he found his footing again.

“Seriously?” He demanded, wide-eyed. Gavin nodded, staring at Michael like perhaps he’d fallen off a roof before, directly onto his head.

“Yeah, it’s what, an hour of raw? I just got back, haven’t got much else to do. I can cut it and let you check it before six.”

“Fuck that, just do what you want and throw it on fucking youtube!” Michael actually punched the air victoriously, and then, to Gavin’s horror, turned and leapt off the edge of the roof with a whoop of pure joy. Gavin heard a thud, and then a “Fuck yeah!” which made absolutely no sense for the five seconds it took Gavin to recall that Michael’s bones were not hollow and sag with relief.

It was one o’clock in the afternoon, the muscles he’d overworked yesterday were getting sorer by the minute, and he was as exhausted as if he’d done a few laps around the city. But he was back in Austin, his wings themselves were singing with freshly-preened pleasure, and if he hadn’t made a new friend, at least he didn’t have a new enemy. He tipped his face up, basking in Texan sunshine and thought, ‘ _Yeah, could be worse._ ’

 


End file.
